Fifteen years of unified communications coverage.
Before AI agents, the next frontier of workplace tech was unified communications — the messy, expensive, world-changing shift from PBX hardware to cloud-based collaboration. This archive preserves what we wrote about it, from Avaya's bankruptcy to Microsoft Lync becoming Teams, vendor by vendor, year by year.
When the question was "cloud or on-prem," not "agent or human."
From 2010 to 2018, UCStrategies was a quiet but unmissable voice in enterprise communications. We covered the slow death of the PBX, the meteoric rise of unified communications platforms, and the strategic vertigo of every CIO trying to decide between Cisco, Avaya, Microsoft Lync, Mitel, Polycom, and twenty other vendors fighting for the same Fortune 500 contracts.
We wrote about Avaya's S-1 filing and its bankruptcy. We dissected every Gartner Magic Quadrant for UC from 2011 to 2017. We reviewed video conferencing systems, debated SBC architectures, and asked whether WebRTC would actually disrupt anything (it did, eventually). Our coverage spanned 25+ industry analysts, including some of the most respected names in enterprise telephony.
In 2025, we pivoted to AI agents — a different beat, same analytical lens. But the archive remains. If you're trying to understand how enterprise communications became what it is today, this is where to look.
The most-read briefs of the era.
These ten posts captured what mattered most between 2014 and 2018.
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications 2017: Completing the Telephony-based Lifecycle for UC
022017Avaya Bankruptcy: A New Dawn or the Beginning of the End?
032016Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications 2016: Raising Questions about UC!
042017Avaya: What is the Path Forward Through Bankruptcy?
052015Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications 2015: The Maturity Maze
062017Microsoft Discontinues Third-Party PBX Integration: What It Could Mean For You
07ArchiveVideo Conferencing Display System Sizing and Location
08ArchiveAvaya Strikes Back With Three New Offers
09ArchiveToshiba Exits North American Telecom Market
10ArchiveHosted vs. On-Premise: Reaping the Benefits of Both for Your Business
Browse by theme.
Twelve curated entry points into the archive.
Gartner Magic Quadrants
Coverage of every UC Magic Quadrant from 2011 to 2017.
Browse →Avaya Saga
The full coverage arc of Avaya's bankruptcy and reorganization.
Browse →Cisco UC Strategy
Cisco's evolution from PBX killer to collaboration platform.
Browse →Microsoft Lync → Teams
The decade-long path from Office Communicator to Teams as we know it.
Browse →The Cloud Migration
Cloud vs on-prem: when to move, what to keep.
Browse →UCaaS Vendor Landscape
Reviews and analysis of the cloud UC vendors that emerged.
Browse →Contact Center Transformation
Cloud, omnichannel, AI in the contact center — early signals.
Browse →WebRTC & Open Standards
The protocol fights that shaped browser-based communication.
Browse →AI's First Wave in UC
Early enterprise AI: speech analytics, IVR, robotic automation.
Browse →Video Conferencing
From Cisco TelePresence to Zoom: the video market take.
Browse →Headsets & Endpoints
Why the right peripheral mattered more than people thought.
Browse →M&A in UC
Genband-Sonus, ShoreTel acquisitions, the Cisco-BroadSoft deal.
Browse →Twenty-five industry analysts. One archive.
Some of the most respected names in unified communications wrote here.
Jim Burton
Founder & CEO, UCStrategies
BPBlair Pleasant
Founding partner · contact center & UC analyst
MPMarty Parker
UC strategy consultant · founding partner
MFMichael Finneran
Mobility and wireless UC analyst
DMDave Michels
Industry analyst · founder of TalkingPointz
DVDon Van Doren
Founding partner · contact center strategy
JAJon Arnold
Independent analyst · communications technology
PEPhil Edholm
Network architect · UC futures
RFRoberta J. Fox
Telecom strategist
SLStephen Leaden
UC consultant
KKKevin Kieller
UC strategy and architecture
NKNicolas De Kouchkovsky
Contact center analyst
Every vendor that mattered.
100+ vendors covered, from market leaders to niche specialists — the full landscape of enterprise communications, 2010–2018.
Planning resources, still relevant.
What we wrote about action planning, RFP processes, and budgeting still maps to how enterprises actually buy comms tech.
Today, we cover a different revolution.
The questions have changed. It's no longer "which vendor wins UCaaS" — it's "which AI agents are doing the work humans used to do."
Same beat (workplace tech), same lens (analyst rigor, vendor-neutral, ROI-focused), new subject (AI agents, frontier models, autonomous systems).